


Pray My Name

by Chancy_Lurking



Category: Naruto
Genre: Dai-nana-han | Team 7 (Naruto) Feels, Dai-nana-han | Team 7 (Naruto)-centric, Friendship/Love, Gen, Shippy Gen, Team Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-23
Updated: 2017-07-23
Packaged: 2018-12-05 19:48:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11584977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chancy_Lurking/pseuds/Chancy_Lurking
Summary: "Your name sounds like the kind of thing you say when you’re afraid,” Sakura finishes.“A prayer,” Sasuke offers without looking away from the window.(Team 7 takes a quiet moment to talk about what their names feel like.)





	Pray My Name

**Author's Note:**

> I found this in a notepad and thought it was quaint enough to get cleaned up a bit…

“ _Na. ru. to_ ,” Sakura says to the ceiling, rolling each syllable in her mouth as if they were separate words with very distinct meanings. “I don’t think I’ve ever told you how much I like your name.”

Naruto raises his eyebrows at her, looking up from his scroll, “You do?”

“Mmhm,” she hums, “It sounds like…” she tries to articulate the way she has muttered his name with every possible emotional inflection. Tries to figure out how to say whenever she thinks of dying, of not wanting to die, of getting close enough to curdle her blood, she can whisper his name and push past the impossible. “Your name sounds like the kind of thing you say when you’re afraid,” she finishes.

“A prayer,” Sasuke offers without looking away from the window.

“Yeah,” Sakura agrees, watching the line of Sasuke’s shoulder shift for a moment before turning back to Naruto. “Like if you say it again and again, something really good will happen or you won’t be afraid anymore.” Sakura doesn’t mention how many times that has happened to her, but Naruto’s face is uncharacteristically serious, so she guesses he can imagine.

“Are you afraid, Sakura-chan?” he asks her softly.

“Of course,” she answers, though she adds easily, honestly, “Never _of_ you, though.” She looks away from him when he flushes, like he hadn’t expected her to know what he was implying with that question. “Bravery doesn’t mean anything if you’re not afraid,” she adds and looks over to where Sasuke’s eyes have pointedly slid to hers, “Just like prayers don’t mean anything if you don’t believe.”

“And do you?” Sasuke asks.

Sakura’s lips quirk towards a smile. “I can’t think of one reason I wouldn’t believe in Naruto.”

“Aw, jeez,” Naruto says, pink and scratching nervously at his neck even as he smiles at her, “I don’t know what to do when you aren’t yelling at me.” She throws a pebble at him hard enough to smart where it hits the side of his neck. “ _Ow!_ ”

Sakura frowns at him, but with no real malice. “Naruto,” she mumbles again.

“Sakura,” he says back, “Your name sort of sounds like… the opposite.” She reaches for a bigger pebble. “ _No, no!!_ I mean it seems like the kind of thing you say when everything is just… _good_. For no reason and… you don’t have words for that type of good.” He tilts his head, “ _Sakura_. Sounds like the kind of thing you say when you’re happy.”

“So still a prayer,” Sasuke says.

“Yeah,” Naruto agrees, “but this time just to say thanks.”

Sakura isn’t sure what Naruto sees on her face, but when she stands up and crosses over to him he winces theatrically. She’s tempted to smack him just on principle, as she usually is, but instead she reaches to pull his hand out of the way.

It’s a neat party trick she’d learned for no other reason other than to see if she could do it, but _of course_ she can – she kisses the pink spot on Naruto’s throat, healing it just as slightly as she’d damaged it. She feels Naruto flash hot beneath her lips, but she just flicks his ear and stands upright. She can feel Sasuke’s gaze on her back, but she doesn’t turn to look at him right away, caught up in the wonder in Naruto’s eyes.

“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever actually asked,” Naruto says, surprisingly evenly, “I always just sort of _hoped_ that you… that, you know…”

Sakura’s face pinches. “Of course I do, idiot,” she answers firmly, plopping down to sit beside him. “I will for the rest of my life, too,” she mumbles long-sufferingly.

Naruto’s face is heartbreakingly relieved. “Okay…” he says hesitantly.

“Anyone who gets to know you isn’t immune anymore,” Sasuke says before Sakura can attempt to tackle the uncertainty in Naruto’s voice, “and we’ve been around longer than anyone else.”

Naruto stares at him. “You?”

Sakura internally cringes before she understands what he’s asking, but Sasuke understands instantly. “ _Of course I do, idiot_ ,” he parrots Sakura and Naruto actually looks like he might cry.

Instead, he looks down at his lap. “…Well, good,” he says softly.

Sakura thinks that’s going to be it, but then he taps her knee. When she looks up at him, he _is_ crying, but he’s smiling at her with a kind of frank genuineness that makes her chest hurt. “I love you guys, too.”

Sakura tuts, wiping his face. “Alright, don’t get me started, too!” she warns, throat already tight.

Sasuke sucks his teeth. “How dramatic.” His reflexes are good enough that he catches the pebble Sakura throws at him without looking, but somehow not good enough – probably intentionally, indulgently – to dodge when Naruto leaps up and wraps them both in his arms.

“You know what?” Naruto says into the space between Sakura and Sasuke’s shoulders, “Your name feels like a prayer, too, Sasuke.”

Sasuke snorts, but it’s only a front and they all know it. “A prayer for _what_?” he sneers and Sakura pulls back to see Naruto’s face, open and bright, no sign of any of the pain that Sasuke’s name used to cause him.

“Something you want so bad it hurts,” Naruto says and Sakura _feels_ that, she feels it like a kick in the gut and the most loving sort of hug all at once. “Something you say when you have something you never want to let go of.”

And Sakura feels the moment Sasuke would’ve torn away from them. She doesn’t have to search through her memories to know this is the longest hug Sasuke has ever allowed them. Naruto’s words, too sincere, too open, should’ve broken the spell that gave him the patience to grant this. Sasuke has no clan and hardly, just recently, has rejoined this team, but it’s a mistake to assume he’s _theirs._ They want him _so badly it hurts_ , but Sasuke owns himself and is only owned by his pain in return. Sakura can imagine him pulling away to remind them of that, no words necessary, just his absence; her hand clenches in Naruto’s jacket, braced for it, prepared to hold onto what she can.

Sasuke doesn’t pull away though.

Sakura sees his hand moving out of the corner of her eye, but no violence follows it, no shoving, no coldness. There’s a moment of indecision, a moment where perhaps the gravity of Naruto’s words weighs on his movements, but then his hand his on the back of Naruto’s neck drawing Naruto’s face to his shoulder, lightly as though he doesn’t even know why it _needs_ to be there. There’s a similar feeling of bafflement when the arm squished between he and Sakura slithers out to find the center of her back, pressing her closer. She goes warm with love and her vision blurs with relieved tears.

“Naruto,” Sasuke says— _prays_ , and even if they were looking at him, they wouldn’t be able to sort out the complicated emotion in his eyes. “ _Sakura_.” He prays their names and it is the most heartfelt and consciously loving thing he has ever directed at them.

It takes the shock out of Naruto, who’d frozen under Sasuke’s hand, and he crushes them tighter like he’s trying to _smelt_ them together. “Yeah,” he says, voice a little ragged.

Sakura presses her cheek to his head. “Yeah,” she agrees and strokes Sasuke’s back as he starts to shake.

Later, it makes her want to laugh when they all sniff as one – she and Naruto face to face, laughing sheepishly, Sasuke turning away to wipe his eye on his shoulder – because it feels like the part of a prayer where everyone agrees that they want it to come true.

It feels like they’re finally saying “amen” to the same thing.

 


End file.
